💬 Finished a report I'd dodged for 8 days and the day got better

There's a monthly dispatch report I've been avoiding since the 3rd. It's 6 sheets from 3 different people. None of the numbers match. One driver's name is spelled 3 ways and the same truck appears twice. Every morning I opened the file, looked at it for a minute, and then did something else. Replied to emails. Cleaned my desk. Once I even went and checked the stock room. Yesterday was already bad. A delivery went to the wrong godown, a driver didn't show, and my tea went cold twice. At 3 pm I said, fine, I'll just open it and see. I told myself 10 minutes. It took 40. The duplicate truck turned out to be a typo and the mismatches were all one person's mistake. I sent it to my partner at 3:45 and he replied with a thumbs up. That's it. I sat there feeling a bit stupid. 8 days of dread for 40 minutes of work. Then I felt great. I walked to the tea stall and bought a samosa nobody asked me to buy. The wrong godown and the missing driver didn't matter any more. They were small now. I told the tea man I'd finished something. He had no idea what I was talking about. I've made a rule. If something's been on my list for 3 days, I do it first thing. I broke the rule on Monday already. There's a GST thing I'm not opening yet. My partner knows. He asked me twice this week and I said, I'm on it. I'm not on it. Tomorrow maybe, if the tea is hot.

A thank you message landing late in the day hits differently, I got one from a client at almost nine in the evening after a rough week and it changed how I felt walking out of the office. Small gestures like that seem to matter more the more drained you already are. Wish more people said it out loud instead of just thinking it.

Eight days of dread for 40 minutes of work is rough, but I'd say the wait helped you. Half my reports get easier after a few days because someone else fixes their numbers meanwhile. Last month I waited 4 days on a sales sheet and the missing figures turned up on their own. It only works when your boss isn't asking, and mine always is.

Eight days of dread sounds exactly like my income tax return every July. I keep the portal open in a tab. I close it each time like it might bite me. This year I finally sat down on a Sunday morning. It took 25 minutes, and most of that was waiting for the OTP to arrive. I'll probably dodge it again next year, because that's how I'm built.